


to die (would be an awfully big adventure)

by ethiobird



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Angst, Canon Compliant, F/F, Fix-It, Literal Soulmates, Post-Canon Fix-It, i dont kno anything abt computers im sorry, listen i think i broke my own heart writing this, operates within canon assuming the flame stays intact, there's some computer jargon that i'm sure is totally not real
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-05
Updated: 2017-02-05
Packaged: 2018-09-22 03:07:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,295
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9579704
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ethiobird/pseuds/ethiobird
Summary: You take her hand again, staring at it for a moment before you whisper, “Maybe this is our Someday.”You both look around then, at the distorted throne room, the strangeness of existing only in someone else's dreams. This is what you are now, with Lexa. This is what you have. A solemn feeling passes between the two of you, because it’s not life; it’s not human. The feeling becomes warm, though, not unlike her hand in yours.Because it’s not nothing.orIn which Clarke and Lexa get their unconventional happily ever after together in the Flame.





	

**Author's Note:**

> I'm sorry in advance for this. I watched San Junipero last November and it made me cry and think of Clexa and I started work on this little one-shot as a result. Canon tells us that both Clarke and Lexa are in the Flame, and this is what my asshole brain vomited out as a result. 
> 
> In theory, this operates within Canon. So you could call it a fix-it fic. It's supposed to be comforting but like I'm not sure I fixed anything at all and actually I'm pretty sure I just made everything way worse. :/
> 
> Anyway, enjoy ?? ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯

You wonder if this is what death is. A vague consciousness, enveloped in blackness. The same feeling you experience those brief moments in nighttime as you’re drifting in and out of sleep. The last thing you remember: pulling the kill switch. _Oh god._ Maybe you were wrong. Maybe having your consciousness in the City of Light as you pulled the switch killed you. _And everyone else._

A thought guides you back. No. They’re safe. You did it. You’re not sure how you know this. _Where’s-_

All at once, a flood of knowing happens, as everything around you seems to shift. We defeated ALIE. The City of Light was destroyed. Raven confirmed to you the rising radiation levels. You're alive. This is…you’re in ALIE 2. You found another nightblood. This is their head you’re in. This new consciousness began the moment it was put there. Everything you were up until the Flame was removed is here.

If you had the capability of being dizzy, you’d probably pass out right now. As it is, the best way you can describe yourself is this nebulous consciousness feeling your way along the dark walls of someone else’s mind.

 _You get used to it._ Someone says. You don’t hear it, per se. You just feel it. _Trust me. I’ve been in dozens of minds for a hundred years. You’ll learn to navigate it._

Becca?

_Yes. Welcome, Commander._

Things slowly start to materialize. You remember something said to you once – they speak to me in my sleep. _Where’s-_

_ALIE may have been a misguided psychopath, but I have to admit. She designed a pretty comprehensive plane of existence, even if we only got to live in it for about an hour. Dreams are fine and all, but the human mind is easily distracted and inconsistent when it’s in charge of building a world. Especially when the subconscious is in charge. One minute you’ve manifested a peaceful beach for yourself, soaking up sun, the next you’re surrounded by the Commander’s monsters and being haunted by their dead._

_Dreams,_ you realize. As if summoned by the thought, a world begins to materialize in front of you. It’s like the world you know, but different. The colors are brighter; the structures are bigger. Everything is moving, shifting. If you were in the world you know, you would be in the throne room in Polis tower. It’s dark, the candles flicker a little too intensely, the shadows dance a little too earnestly on the walls.

Becca appears next to you, so like ALIE, but softer, more real. Her voice is audible now, sound coming from a movement of lips. “Thankfully, we have a little control over the landscape. It’s still their mind, of course, and they could wake up or shut us out at any second if they wanted to. But we can guide them, gently.”

“We’re in their dreams right now?” You say, and each word feels heavy and redundant as it comes out of your mouth. You already know this because Becca already knows this, and so does _Michel, Cleo, Karol, Cillian, Wiebke, Sara, Jefferson–_ you realize you know everything all the past commanders know. A queasiness envelops you, and you feel Becca’s little knowing smile rather than see it.

“Like I said, you get used to it. In hindsight I might’ve programmed ALIE 2 to not be quite so…sharing.” The dancing shadows begin to manifest themselves as dark figures on the wall, like the black figures painted on the wall in Titus’s den. They begin to form human shapes. Becca continues, “It’s not exactly conducive to privacy. You’re still your own person and your own consciousness, but you do have full access to all the past Commanders, just as they have access to you. Data sharing is a lot easier when you don’t have flesh and blood separating everything.”

If you had a heart, it would be beating wildly. Your head spins frantically, trying to focus on the shifting forms around you. A ringing envelops you, the throne room transforming from Titus’s lair, to the dropship, to the Commander’s bedroom. _Where’s-_

Becca’s voice cuts back in, clear and firm now, as if to try and ground you. “Your code is processing in overdrive right now, which is normal for everyone's first time booting up." If you had lungs, you might be hyperventilating. "And this will be probably be harder for you than previous Commanders – you were never conditioned into accepting that someday you would essentially be information on a storage device. Or a spirit in a Flame, if you will. But I _need_ you to try and calm your thoughts, Clarke.”

Another figure steps in as you try and calm yourself. _Sevelt. The twenty-first Commander. Ascended in his eighteenth year. Kept the Flame for seven. The first Heda to live longer than three years after taking the Flame. Saw the beginning of the Maunon stealing victims from its surrounding people._ “She’ll learn to quiet her mind eventually.” _Stabbed in the back by another natblida, Daina – one he thought was a friend – who felt he was too soft. There will be no one left if you sit idly and wait for our people to be captured by these monsters in the mountain! Blood must have blood! The strongest should lead us!_ “And,” Sevelt continues, a lilt of amusement in his tone, “Hopefully learn some manners. Just because you _can_ access my full memories and experiences,” _Daina began the practice of the Conclave, of competing for the Flame. She shut out much of the past Commanders’ counsel. She is not popular company with the older inhabitants of the Flame._ “Doesn’t mean you _should._ ” Sevelt finishes, more firmly now.

Red-hot embarrassment flushes through you as you nod dumbly. “Sorry.”

“She will learn.” Another voice supplies again, bored, sitting at the edge of the room. It’s shifted firmly back to the throne room at Polis. You suppose this is the place all of the past Commanders have collectively spent the most time, that each knows in the most detail. It can be recreated the most true to how it actually was, providing an illusion of stability. You track to the voice that spoke up, _Emet, twenty-eighth Commander, ascended in their thirteenth year. Kept the Flame for –_ you stop yourself, feeling their annoyance at you for having intruded their memories.

“See? She’s learning already. If you’ll excuse me–“ Sevelt suddenly dematerializes.

“Where did he go?” You startle. You keep asking questions you already know the answer to.

“You’re free to roam however you want. The exception being when the current Commander needs counsel. We're all here to provide our wisdom and experiences, first and foremost.”

Something else has been gnawing at the back of your mind. _Where’s-_

“Lexa is here.” Becca says, solemn and knowing, finally answering the question that’s been at the edge of your mind since your awareness in the Flame began. “Her data’s been corrupted. She put herself in harm's way trying to protect you.”

Your stomach bottoms out, but Becca places a reassuring hand on your shoulder.

“We’re working on restoring her as we speak, Clarke. Rule number one: always back up important data.”

That queasiness forms in the pit of your stomach at the idea of Lexa – strong, beautiful, wise Lexa – being reduced to ones and zeroes. “Where is…can I see her?”

Becca nods, and you feel everything shift again, Becca guiding you, as if showing you how to reach for her, so you don’t need her to do it for you from now on.

You’re in your bedroom in Polis. Candlelight flickers as the dipping sun nears its horizon. The setting is hauntingly familiar.

 _“Lexa.”_ You breathe, and frantically make your way to her on the bed, furs underneath her coated in thick, black blood, body blemished all over with deep slashes and cuts. Several figures stand around her, hands placed over her. She’s completely frozen, but not the way she was when she...the last time you saw her like this. More like…suspended.

“You can help.” Becca supplies gently. Her words somehow prompt you to move forward to touch the side of her temple, and everything spills from you. In the back of your mind you understand coldly that what’s happening is a data transfer. Information stored about _Lexa, thirty-seventh Commander, ascended in her sixteenth year. Kept the Flame for five._ Except all of that information is already there. What’s happening with you is a data transfer of feelings, thoughts, essences. The things you couldn’t put words to if you tried – everything you know of her, that made Lexa _Lexa_.

The tiny twitch at the corner of her lips when she was amused about something but wanted to hide it, the subtle roll of her eyes whenever you would test her patience, the quiet contemplative wisdom in the set of her jaw when she was faced with an impossible situation, the shudder of her lower lip when she came undone underneath you.

She’s still marred with wounds. But the longer you stand over her stroking at her hairline, the closer you look, you start to notice wounds closing, almost imperceptible threads of glowing silver filling in spaces until gaping gashes become little cuts become smooth skin. Even the torn material of her clothing begins to mend itself, until finally, she lay before you, unmarred, clear as the last time you saw her.

“You’ll be able to speak with her soon.” Becca says softly, stepping away from Lexa with the other figures surrounding her. “She just needs to reboot.”

_Do you have to refer to her like she’s a damn computer-_

“I told you, you’ll get used to it. It’s the reality of what it means to be here, Clarke. Come, we’ll all teach you how to be. You can start getting a feel for everything.”

“No, I want to be here when she wakes up.”

Becca shakes her head. “Human dreams have no consistency in time regulation. The nice thing about the City of Light was that there was a limit on the speed of data transfer, one that closely mirrored the speed at which it happens in real life. That’s not the case here. In the real world, rebooting Lexa is taking about twenty seconds. But it will feel like days if you just wait by her bedside.”

You nod, understanding, but still frustrated by the idea.

Becca and the others spend some time teaching you how to build up walls and doors around your mind. She describes each of you like rooms with doors. You realize what Sevelt meant when he said you had bad manners – instead of barging into the room of someone’s mind and taking data, you should knock and ask for permission.

 _So disruptive._ You feel someone think, irritated. _She’s taking up all of the bandwidth._

 _She just needs time. You didn’t fare much better in your first moments here, if you recall._ Another one retorts. _Besides, do you really have anything better to do?_

The first presence huffs indignantly.

“Sorry.” You say again, though you’re not really sure to whom exactly.

After what feels like days, you finally manage to get a loose grasp on how to regulate your sense of time – and you realize it’s only been about 2.019 seconds. A past Commander named Ester shows you how to quiet your thoughts so the time doesn’t stretch to impossible lengths, though one second still feels like an hour. She tells you with amusement that you have an unusually anxious and worrying mind, so it will be a harder skill for you to learn.

All you want is to see Lexa.

You find yourself revisiting memories when the quiet becomes unbearable – watching football recordings with your father and Wells on the Ark, the more hazy alcohol-induced memories from Unity Day on the ground. The little moments of peace with Lexa in Polis before everything went to hell.

Finally, you feel her code stir and move. Technically, you move to interact with her as quickly as you can. The way this manifests in the dreamscape is you _literally_ barreling into her, full speed, toppling her to the ground of your room in Polis tower and grasping to her form tightly.

“Clarke?” She croaks, and you pull away enough to read the way the information processes. You’re sure both of you are living within fractions of fractions of milliseconds, taking up every ounce of the bandwidth limit on the Flame, trying to connect and process and understand. “You’re–“ Her eyes widen in panic, because _you’re_ here, and everyone else here is dead, but then she must access the mind of the current Commander, see their memories of you living and breathing and fighting to survive on the outside. You made it. You're okay.

Lexa’s not, of course, but you feel her resigned, completely selfless relief that at least  _you_ are, and your face crumples as emotion bubbles up in you. “I’m so sorry.” You practically sob, burying your face into her shoulder, her hair as soft as you remember it. “You’re – because of me. I couldn’t do anything.”

“Clarke.” She soothes you with gentle fingers through your hair. “Don’t be sorry. It wasn’t your fault.”

You shake your head. _It was, though._ As if reading your mind, which you realize she actually is, she pulls away to give you a firm but compassionate look.

“ _No._ ” She says again, then fixes you with the kind of stern stare she used to use back when she was trying to guide you as a leader. “There’s nothing to be done.” Then she softens, eyes roaming your face as she reaches up to brush her fingers through the hair at your temple. Your eyes fall closed. “I’m grateful that we have this, and not nothing, Clarke.”

You shake your head, weakly frustrated. “We could’ve had the real version. But I had to go and provoke Titus, and now – and now–“

“Clarke.” She interrupts you with an expression that’s chiding but still warm. Solemn and accepting. It says, _you know that was never going to happen. Life was too messy, duty too all-consuming, and we were always, always going to owe everything to our people, until death._

“That doesn’t mean I didn’t want to try.” You say, bitter, before quickly realizing that you invaded her thoughts without permission. “Sorry. I’m sorry. I’m still getting used to–“

“Clarke.” She interrupts you again, so gentle, and takes your hand to press a tender kiss at your knuckles, soft eyes never leaving yours. “I would share everything with you.”

You graze your thumb over her hand, overwhelmed by the remembrance of how much she’s everything you need and everything you want.

“I love you.” You whisper, trembling.

She stares at you again, like she did in the City of Light when you first told her, and that rare little smile appears again, looking at you in that way that she does like she still can’t believe you’re real. You hope you’ll get to see that smile more now that she’s not bound to duty and appearances.

“Ai hod yu in seintaim.” She replies softly. _I love you too._

You meet in a kiss. It's not like any that you've shared with her. Not tentative and nervous like in her tent before the Mountain. Not assured yet desperate, knowing your time is limited. Not bittersweet and tainted with the looming knowledge it's the last time you'll feel her lips against hers. Instead, it's full of peace, contentment. Like coming home. You're not sure you've ever felt so fulfilled as you do right now, in Lexa's warm arms, living here in this impossible moment with her. Everything quiets around the two of you; as if time itself has stopped moving.

 _Finally._ You feel someone huff.

 _Let them have their moment._ Another supplies, berating. _They’ve been through so much._

 _We all have._ A resentful voice mumbles quietly.

You pull back and Lexa appears confused, looking around, and you can feel her code doing the same thing yours did when your consciousness first booted up, and you remember that this is the first time she’s experienced being conscious inside the new Commander’s mind. Up until now, she’d only been in the City of Light, inhibited by the transfer cap, or dormant in the Flame.

You smile at her as you place a reassuring hand at the nape of her neck, stroking gently. “C’mon.” You say, standing, then offer a hand to help her up. You echo Becca’s words from earlier. “I’ll show you how to be.”

Lexa of course learns how to quiet her mind much more quickly than you do. You roll your eyes at the smug smirk she gives you, as if telling you _I told you you worry too much_ , but secretly you relish in the ease with which she lets you see this side of her. The side of her that she had to keep locked down as Heda, in order to be a feared and respected leader, revealed to you only in rare, quiet moments.

 _I love you_ becomes a thought often repeated in your consciousness, and it’s not one you try to hide from her. She gives you that same soft smile every time it happens.

“You two are disgusting.” Emet suddenly says from next to you, but there’s no malice in their tone.

Lexa cutely flushes, bashful. You watch this play across her face, almost in awe until you realize something. Lexa feels the shift in your thoughts and turns back to you, curious.

You take her hand again, staring at it for a moment before you whisper, “Maybe this is our Someday.”

You both look around then, at the distorted throne room, the strangeness of existing only in someone else’s dreams. This is what you are now, with Lexa. This is what you have. A solemn feeling passes between the two of you, because it’s not life, it’s not human. The feeling becomes warm, though, because it’s not nothing.

It takes you each about two days in Earth time to master the ability to regulate your transfers so that you’re not hogging the bandwidth every time the new Commander falls asleep, and you’re able to live with each other in what’s almost real time.

It’s not perfect, of course. You’ll be in the middle of quietly enjoying a peaceful moment with Lexa or finding some solitude with a drawing (which unfortunately you can’t save. But you count yourself lucky that your consciousness within the Flame can even learn and evolve at all), minding your own business when the current Commander’s dreams take a sudden, violent turn. Still, you’re so glad you risked everything and took the Flame. Even if only to spare Lexa the loneliness of being there without you, and having to watch the Clarke in the real world live and maybe move on.

Eventually, the current Commander gives you both access to a memory from the day before, of a conversation with the flesh-and-blood Clarke. In it, she asks about Lexa, whether she’s still in the Flame, and you see how terrified she is of the answer. You and Lexa solemnly take each others’ hands and tell the Commander to tell Clarke…to tell her that you’re both here. That you got your Someday. And…that it’s okay to move on.

You're later given access to the Commander's memory of them telling Clarke this, and witnessing that image of that Clarke breaking down in muffled sobs as she hears it…it sobers you both for days.

It's another few days before the Commander summons you both to give you access to one last memory, at the request of Clarke, with the condition that nothing else be shared after that point. You understand why, and you even know you’d do the same, and then you think about how strange it is that you've begun to refer to a different version of yourself as if she were a completely different person.

The memory begins. Clarke is looking into the Commander’s eyes, but looking into them as if they’re Lexa’s. She looks worn, eyes dark and hollow, and so much older, even though only months have passed. Her hair has changed. She looks as if already she’s seen a new lifetime of pain, just in the time since the Flame was taken out of her head.

She takes a breath. “Tell Lexa…” She starts, lip trembling, “Tell her I miss her. So much that…sometimes I can’t even _breathe_. That I’m trying, I’m trying to do this all without her. Tell her I’m trying to be strong, that I’m keeping our people alive as best I can. That I’m keeping her legacy alive.” Hot tears begin to fall silently down her face. “Tell her I’m…” Her face completely crumples now as she continues. “I’m _so_ happy for the Clarke in there with you. For both of you. Really.”

The sympathy and pity you feel for Clarke feels like lead in your chest. For how unfair it must feel that there’s a version of her that gets to have some kind of peace, and that gets to be with Lexa. How unjust that _she_ had to be the one that had to keep going on alone, fighting to survive in that harsh world. You don’t envy her.

Clarke doesn’t try and belittle what you’ve been given with Lexa, or invalidate it out of spite, and you think that already this is an indication of how her new experiences are shaping her into a different person than you.

“Tell her-” She rasps through a sudden, sharp sob, then turns to hide her face and wipe at her eyes, taking several breaths in an attempt to steady herself. “Tell her I loved her.” You feel Lexa tremble next to you. “ _S_ _o_ much.” Her last words force themselves out through a mess of tears and labored gasps. “Goodbye, Lexa.”

The memory ends, and it takes you and Lexa three nights of dreams to wade through the heavy feeling of emptiness that’s settled on you because of it. When it’s bad like this, you find comfort in each other by breaking down your walls to share everything together, laying out everything openly, feeling and processing as one, and it helps. It heals.

 _That’s_ something you can’t do in the real world.

Months pass, and eventually it happens. Clarke dies. You only find out because it’s one of the last memories of the current Commander, projecting everywhere when they boot up in the Flame a week later in the new Commander's dreams. They both died fighting the same battle, and she dies trying to save your people. It was quick, and relatively painless. You’re not sure how you’re supposed to feel, and none of the other Commanders know what to say, but really, you feel strangely at peace. It’s _Lexa_ that’s devastated. She retreats from everybody for hours, including you, which ends up feeling like days.

It makes you livid.

 _That_ Clarke didn’t spend quiet months with Lexa in the Flame, getting to know each other, loving each other, learning each others’ bodies, sharing everything together. You’re not sure which Clarke is the real one, and if it even matters anymore, but that Clarke? She wasn’t the one Lexa knows.

Eventually you decide you’ve had enough. “ _I’m_ still here, Lexa.” You finally spit, incensed. “Nothing’s changed.”

This seems to snap some understanding into her, and finally she comes back to you.

“I’m sorry.” She apologizes, cradling your face. “I know I haven’t lost _you_ , ai hodnes. I know you became different people.” She shakes her head, biting her lip, and it takes a lot of effort to restrain yourself from accessing her train of thought without permission before she speaks again. “I think more than anything I’m mourning that…everything I did to protect you when I was still alive…” She shakes her head again, angry. “It _still_ just wasn’t enough.”

Affection and understanding replaces your anger, because now everything has come full circle.

"Oh, Lexa..." You stroke her temple, kissing her gently through her tears. “It was never going to be enough. We were always going to be bound to our duty until the day we died. You couldn’t protect me, and I couldn’t fix you. Those parts were inevitable. Death was inevitable. But,” You smile at her then, full of joy and sadness simultaneously, “Someone wise once told me ‘death is not the end.’”

She smiles back, matching your expression of melancholy, searching your face before finally responding, “Death has given me more than I could’ve dreamed of asking for, Clarke kom Skaikru.”

And you exist like that with her. For years. From new Commander to new Commander. Sharing everything and growing and learning wherever possible. Making art, making love, reading every book every Commander’s ever read, watching films from the Old World, reliving memories, contemplating both the old world of Life and your new world of Death.

You’re together through the laughter, the softness, the boredom, the frustration, the intimacy, the _love._ For centuries, you’re together. By that point, your code has deteriorated, just like everyone else’s. Not even circuitry is immortal. The essences are still there, but parts of you and Lexa are missing. But you help each other fill those gaps, and in many ways two souls become one.

You’re together when the last Commander draws her last breath. There’s no Fleimkepa to retrieve the Flame this time.

Clarke Griffin of the Sky People, Mountainslayer, together with Leksa kom Trikru, the thirty-seventh Commander and Uniter of the Thirteen Clans. Souls intertwined, bound together, frozen, suspended in silicone.

Together in Death, until the end of time itself.

**Author's Note:**

> Come cry with me on tumblr at hedarey.


End file.
